Aubrey Beardsley and British Wagnerism in the 1890s

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Introduction: Wagnerism in Britain in the 1890s
1 Decadents and Wagnerites: Beardsley and Wilde
2 The pathology of pleasure: decadent sensibility and affective art
3 Wagnerites en masse: the audience as spectacle
4 Commercialism and consumerism: Wagnerism in The Savoy
5 Antiquarianism and national identity: Under the Hill
6 Concluding the cycle: Das Rheingold
Epilogue: framing the decade
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Aubrey Beardsley and British Wagnerism in the 1890s is an interdisciplinary study of the influence of the operas, writing, and personality of Richard Wagner (1813-1883) on the work of Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). Examining Beardsley's drawings and prose of the 1890s the study considers the ways in which Wagner's works were appropriated by this seminal figure of the British decadent movement. Despite recent critical interest in Beardsley and the 'fin-de-siècle', and considerable research on Wagnerism, Aubrey Beardsley and British Wagernism in the 1890s is the first study in English to consider at length Wagner's presence in Beardsley's work. Beardsley combined allusions to the German composer with many of the touchstones of decadent art - the exotic, the morbid, the erotic, and the mannered. In exploring Beardsley's often iconoclastic versions - or perversions - of Wagner's work Aubrey Beardsley and British Wagernism in the 1890s aims to investigate the role of Wagnerism with 'fin-de-siècle' British culture, in particular the relations between Wagnerism and contemporary decadence.

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Music and Letters

Sutton's argument is carefully and persuasively constructed ... [she] demonstrates impressive sensitivity

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